Awful as things seemed now, in the end he was sure they’d work out all right.
In that regard, Bobby and John would give him the argument of a lifetime. For them, as they hurried with Rogue down the nearest flight of stairs, the order of the evening was that things that were bad were constantly getting worse.
The mansion was crawling with troops, and from the sounds they heard all around, they quickly realized that nobody was using tranquilizer guns anymore. The bad guys were shooting bullets now, and they weren’t being stingy with their ammunition.
Abruptly, Rogue stopped in her tracks, so suddenly the others slammed into her from behind. Harsh words were formed, but none were spoken. The sight before them wouldn’t allow it.
Rogue was standing amid a pile of bodies, all soldiers.
“Logan was here,” John commented unnecessarily, but even he felt small and vulnerable in the face of this carnage.
“This is old news,” Bobby said, reaching for Rogue’s gloved hand. “We can’t stay here, Rogue, we’re sitting ducks. We keep running after him like this, we’ll just get ourselves in trouble.”
She didn’t reply, she didn’t move a muscle, so Bobby edged forward to look her in the face.
She was staring down at her chest. It was covered in green dots. He looked up, following the beams of light to their source, and found a team of soldiers in the far doorway, weapons leveled.
They never got a chance to fire. Logan saw to that.
He was on the gallery above them, and with a primal scream that was so much more animal than human, he dropped on them like the wrath of God unleashed, arms held wide, claws extended.
The soldiers didn’t stand a chance. Bobby couldn’t watch this time any more than the last. Rogue wouldn’t turn away. Logan was a part of her now, and would be forever, the same as with everyone else she imprinted. She felt her own fists flex just a little and felt an echo of the wild and untamable creature she saw before her.
Something tweaked her attention. Her eyes flicked to the side, and she caught a glimpse of a smile on John’s face and a look to his eye that made her sad and scared all at the same time. John was enjoying this. He wanted a piece of it for himself. It would be fun.
A brace of lights hit the entrance from outside and above, pinning Logan in their beams as the helicopters responded to frantic calls for help down below. They didn’t wait for orders, they wouldn’t have cared anyway; the moment their guns came to bear, they opened fire, pockmarking the lawn with craters and shattering the stone entrance to the mansion to powder. But their target wasn’t there anymore.
“Go,” Logan told the kids, pushing them deep into the house. “Go, go, go!”
John found the nearest escape passage, opened the door, then he and Bobby went leaping through at once. Rogue held back. Imprinting Logan had left her own senses with a faint residue of what Logan himself possessed, and she could hear soldiers closing on their position from every side.
She called his name.
“Keep going,” he told her, and shunted her none too gently over the threshold.
“Logan,” she pleaded.
He shut the door in her face. And she was glad.
He figured at least twenty close at hand as he put his back to the wall, but only a dozen of them lit him up with their lasers. They didn’t fire right away, he didn’t care.
He popped both sets of claws, but their fire discipline held. Nobody pulled a trigger.
“You want a piece of me,” Logan raged, his face twisted with a wild, untamable grin. “C’mon, boys, take your best shot. You know you want to. Shoot me! And see who gets to walk out of here alive!”
“No,” said someone new, with quiet authority.
“Not yet,” the figure finished, approaching through the darkness. The voice was familiar, Logan recognized that at the start, but he couldn’t find a name or face to match it.
“Wolverine? Is that you?” the man said, closer still, the soldiers reluctantly moving apart to allow him past. He was important to them, but also, and just as obviously, the man in charge. They couldn’t refuse. Kill him, Logan sensed instinctively, and this fight could well be won. “How long has it been?”
The man paused, as if expecting an answer to his greeting, his voice showing some good humor as he continued: “Fifteen years? And you haven’t changed a bit. Me, on the other hand . . .”
With that, William Stryker stepped into view. He wore combat gear, just like his men, and in that attire his true calling was more than plain.
“Nature.” He made a deprecating gesture. “It takes its toll.”
The scent rang bells, far more so than the face, yet try as he might Logan couldn’t find the labels that would give these random flashes of remembrance proper meaning.
The claws withdrew into their housings.
“What do you want?” Logan asked of him.
Stryker replied with a smile that would have done the Cheshire cat proud.
On the other side of the wall, Rogue stood unmoving in the entrance to the secret passage, bitterly ashamed of the surge of emotion that had swept through her as Logan closed the door. He’d been a stand-up guy for her from the start, and this was how she repaid him, by being happy that he stayed behind—because she felt an echo in her own soul of the berserker rage and madness that possessed his. It made her want to run away from him, more powerfully than any impulse she’d ever felt. But being his friend, being true to her name, she defied those expectations. She spit in their eye. Logan would have done the same, but this response was purely hers, and that, too, was why she chose to stay. They were alike, but they weren’t the same.
Hands grabbed her arms. She shook them off.
“Wait,” she told the boys, who couldn’t believe their ears. “You’ve got to do something.”
“Damn straight,” John said hurriedly. “Run like hell while we’ve got the chance!”
“They’re going to kill him!”
That argument fell on totally deaf ears. Both boys had seen Logan in action. Neither believed such an outcome remotely possible.
“Yeah, right.” John scoffed for emphasis. “He can handle himself, Rogue. Let’s book!”
“Bobby,” she pleaded, “please!” She was desperate now, determined, because when she said, “They’re going to kill him,” the part of her that resonated with him suggested that was something he desired.
All Bobby knew was that Logan was the scariest creature he’d ever encountered. He was every nightmare that had ever had come to life, and if he never met Logan again, he’d be haunted by these memories for as long as he drew breath. In a way, he blamed Logan for all that was happening tonight. The first time he came to the mansion was when they were attacked by Magneto; now, the night of his return, the Army. He was a walking invitation to disaster, and nothing good would come of hanging with him. He also saw the way Rogue looked at him, spoke of him, cared for him, and he hated him for holding the place in her heart he wanted for himself.
Leave him. Let him find his own fate. That was the smart play. It was what he’d told them to do.
Stryker took a step closer to Logan, the men behind him making adjustments to their stance and position so that he didn’t block any shooter’s line of sight. One twitch from him, that would be their cue to cut loose on full auto, with enough firepower to turn anyone alive into hamburger. Another man, whose manner and bearing marked him as an officer, put aside his rifle and set himself to make a grab for Stryker and try to yank him clear if things went sour. Given all Lyman had seen tonight of Logan’s handiwork, he suspected that was a forlorn hope. He’d try regardless. That was his job, to look after Stryker, and most likely die with him.
Logan saw the action. Loyalty like that couldn’t be bought, he knew. His estimation of the other man went up a serious notch.
If Stryker was a fraction of the man Logan judged him to be, he had to know the danger, but he made no acknowledgment of it. He played the scene as if they were two old compan
ions, possibly even friends, reuniting after a long and enforced separation. No denying his courage, that was sure, and Logan’s assessment of him went up another notch as well.
“I must admit,” Stryker continued, carrying on this eerily incongruous conversation, “this is the last place I thought I’d ever see you, Wolverine. I didn’t realize Xavier was taking in animals.” A pause to let the barb sink in. Logan didn’t react. “Even animals as . . . unique as you.”
“Who are you?”
“Don’t you remember?”
Logan blinked, wondering what was wrong with the air. A mist was forming between him and Stryker, the temperature plunging so rapidly that one breath was normal, the next gusting a cloud of icy condensation.
On the other side of the mist, Stryker reached out a hand to encounter a wall of gleaming ice that divided the hallway from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, forming a protective bulwark between the mutant and Stryker. The men around him stirred, suddenly anxious that they might become entrapped in ice themselves. But nobody broke ranks.
Logan considered using his claws. No matter how thick the wall, he could speedily turn it into ice cubes. But first he had to deal with the damn kids.
The look on his face caused John to take a reflexive, cautionary step backward and made Bobby thankful he was inside the passage, his hands held flat against the wall to generate and sustain his ice field. Rogue didn’t flinch, didn’t fade. She met him eye to eye with a will as stubborn as his own.
“Logan,” she said. “Come on.”
“Do as you’re told, girl. Get outta here. I’ll be fine.” He used a tone and manner that had always gotten instant results. She returned both in equal measure.
“But we won’t.” Then, more quietly, “Please!”
Stryker wasn’t sure what was happening. The wall was translucent enough to suggest to him that Logan was no longer alone, but it didn’t allow him to see how many others had joined him or who they were. With swift, decisive movements, he plucked a penetrator grenade from Lyman’s harness and jammed it into the ice. Lyman immediately pulled him back and around, to shield his commander’s body with his own. The other troopers shielded themselves and scrambled for cover as best they could in the seven seconds that passed between Stryker pulling the pin and the bomb detonating. The shock resounded through the confined space, leaving those closest to the blast partially deafened, their bodies feeling like they’d just been pummeled by jackhammers. The force of the shaped charge went straight into the ice, filling the air with frozen splinters as it punched through the wall like a spear.
When the mist cleared, the wall lay in broken chunks, filling the hallway and partially covering some of the men.
On the other side, though, was empty floor. Of Wolverine, and the others Stryker had seen, there was no sign.
John led the way, even though Logan could see a lot better in the dark. The boys wouldn’t admit it aloud, but both of them preferred having him between them and the bad guys.
At the first junction, John went left.
“John, no,” Bobby called after him.
“This is where Petey and the others went.”
“I’ve got a better idea. This way.”
The other direction ended at the garage. Like everything else about the mansion, there was a public space and a private one. Upstairs, in a carriage house set a little apart from the main buildings, was the usual group of SUVs and vans, plus the professor’s vintage Rolls-Royce. The basement held a far more eclectic and personal assortment of vehicles, including Scott’s collection of bikes. Some looked normal, others were as wildly modified and revolutionary in conception and design as the Blackbird.
The choice for tonight was a sports car, blindingly quick but so well crafted and balanced that it could handle the local roads—which were narrow and wickedly winding—as though it were traveling on rails. The confines would be cramped, but it would carry them all.
John dropped into the driver’s seat with the announcement, “I’m driving.”
Logan yanked him clear as though he weighed nothing. “In your dreams, smart-ass,” he growled. “Boys in the back.”
Rogue rode shotgun, Bobby making sure to sit behind her.
“This is Scott’s car,” he said.
“Oh, yeah?” Logan didn’t sound impressed, but actually he was.
“We’ll need keys.”
Logan’s reply was the snikt of a single claw extending. He stabbed it through the ignition, twisted some wires together, got a spark, got a start, and they were on their way.
There was an evacuation tunnel for vehicles as well, giving them access directly to Graymalkin Lane, the road that ran along the estate’s border. A left turn would take them to the neighboring town of Purdy’s Station and the interstate, 684, that linked New York City with the main east-west highway—I-84—that bisected Connecticut and the southern tier of New York State. Turning right put them into the heart of Fairfield County, lots of woodland roads so gnarly and poorly signed that even the locals got lost occasionally. It was hilly country, constantly dropping into little ravines and hollows, which made it difficult to establish sustained radio or cellular communication.
Logan went for it like a shot, taking the turns at speeds that made the three passengers grab for their seat belts and then hold them tight. He drove without lights.
“Uhh,” Bobby tried, swallowed, tried again. “You could maybe slow down, you know.”
“Like hell,” John retorted. “Go faster, dude, get us the hell away from here, please!” He finished in savage mimicry of Rogue’s plea, both to Bobby and to Logan himself. “Jesus wept,” he said, more to himself than anyone else, “what the hell was that back there?”
Rogue caught a flicker from Logan’s eyes, his fingers working the leather-wrapped steering wheel and making it creak with tension.
“Stryker,” he said after a while, as at least one penny dropped in memory. “His name is Stryker.”
“Who’s he?” Rogue asked.
His mouth stretched ever so slightly into a wry grimace, his head shook the smallest fraction.
“I don’t know,” he confessed, to her alone. “I don’t remember.”
She huddled deep in her seat, and he noticed that she was playing with something on her wrist: his old dog tags. He’d given them to her as a keepsake before leaving for Alkali Lake.
Seeing his look, following it to her hand, she unwrapped them from her wrist and held them out to him.
He took them, rubbing his thumb over the embossed letters like Aladdin did his lamp, hoping for his own kind of genie and three wishes to unlock all the secrets of his life, never considering—now or ever—that perhaps those secrets weren’t something he should see.
He shifted gears and heard a yelp of shock and protest from John as his elbow clipped the boy in the cheek.
“What’s your problem, kid?” he growled as John wriggled his head and an arm between the front seats, reaching for the center console.
“What are you doing, John?” Rogue demanded in that clippy voice that meant she’d been pushed too far and was ready to do some real damage.
“Too much silence, dudes. Majorly uncomfortable. Don’t like it.”
He pressed a button and the speakers erupted with what passed for music from a techno band that none of them had ever heard of and, after the first few seconds, didn’t want to. The car’s sound system was as superb as its engine and handling, the choice of cds was truly deranged, inspiring impassioned and derogatory comments galore from the kids. Logan didn’t say a word. His own tastes ran mainly toward roadhouse R&B and classic jazz, with one exception that he’d never been able to figure out, an affinity that went back as far as his memory for the Japanese koto.
Of course, being the ultimate gearhead, Scott had built himself a system only he could understand. The damn controls weren’t even marked. Probably had an operator’s manual the size of the Manhattan phone book. The more John tried to kill the music, the louder it
became. Finally, when Logan was on the verge of ending their torment with a swipe of his claws, the boy managed to find the eject button. Only this switch had nothing whatsoever to do with the music. Instead, a tray popped into view, revealing an oval-shaped disk about as small as your basic computer mouse.
With a grumble of righteous exasperation Rogue pressed another switch on the console . . .
. . . and they heard only road noise once more, and the wind rushing past.
She and Logan exchanged looks, he offering silent thanks for her saving the day, while she thanked him in return for his forbearance. Her fist, the arm that had worn Logan’s dog tags, was tightly clenched, the same way he held it when he popped his claws. If she’d had claws to go with the residue of Logan’s personality and powers she still possessed, John would have been shish kebab ages ago.
John noticed none of this. He was too engrossed in his new toy. He found another button and when he pressed it found himself holding a two-way communication device.
“Guys,” he announced, “I don’t think this has anything to do with the CD player.”
Logan plucked it from the boy’s hand. John’s survival instincts were working overtime. For once he didn’t protest as Logan examined the device. Whatever the infuriating idiosyncrasies of the car’s sound system, this at least made some sense to him.
“Where are we going?” John asked after awhile, totally lost.
“Storm and Jean are in Boston” was Logan’s terse reply. “We’ll head that way.”
“My folks live in Boston,” Bobby said.
“Good,” said Logan.
Rogue heard him, but she wasn’t really paying attention. She was looking at Logan’s hands, skin covered past both wrists with what could easily be mistaken for dried paint, caked a layer or two more thickly between the knuckles, where the claws went into their housings. Her eyes saw more than she wanted, her sense of smell revealed more than she could bear, and she looked down at her own hands, wondering suddenly how her sleeping gloves had gotten so badly shredded. Too much skin showing, she thought, I have to be really careful about touching anyone. Her hands were trembling with the memory of what she’d seen him do.
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